The AIM Energy Action Group helps AIM member museums to reduce their bills and demonstrate energy sustainability. So far 130 members have joined up for free, so don’t miss out on saving your museum money.
The AIM Energy Action Group is offering a free service that will carry out an analysis of your bills and check that the charges are correct, and more importantly, that they are appropriate for our suppliers.
All we require is a copy of your most recent bill or renewal notice and a letter of authority. Find out more here:
The 2017 AIM Energy Action Group (EAG) buying basket has now been successfully completed with 89% of EAG members securing contracts through the group. Members selected terms ranging from 1 to 3 years in roughly equal numbers.
This reflected low pricing differentials between the durations with current economic and political factors impacting on short term pricing as much as longer term uncertainty. It’s certainly felt like a volatile summer with rising oil prices and worsening exchange rates and unseasonal weather all impacting on energy prices!
Nonetheless, summer months and our buying basket produced favourable prices. August price trends are steadily upwards due to volatility in oil, gas and coal prices. The next AIM Energy Action Group buying basket will take place in Spring / Summer 2018 with 40 gigawatts of gas and electricity included so far.
Gas prices remained steady over the basket period although they were higher than in 2016, however, electricity renewals caused several issues. The most significant factor has been the impact of Ofgem P272* which resulted in many electricity meters being moved to a half-hourly status. Half Hourly metering incurs increased costs but is useful in providing data that can highlight energy efficiency opportunities.
Increases in government energy levies also brought about sharp increases for those renewing electricity contracts this year. Our recent AIM bulletin article titled ‘The Rise and Rise of Electricity charges’ covers both these issues in depth.
For meters upgraded under P272 a capacity cost (measured in kVa) now becomes a chargeable cost along with increased standing charges and metering and data collection charges. All electric supplies have a capacity agreed by the local District Network Operator (DNO) to manage local demand.
It is incumbent on the bill payer to make sure their agreed capacity is appropriate for their needs. Our experience is that many sites have more (often considerably more) capacity assigned to them than they need. This is expensive.
An average site could pay more than £1,000 per annum due to excessive capacity charges. Energy efficiency measures and changes of use in a building mean that the original capacity of a supply may be out of date and unsuitable.
In some cases, we have found that supplies can be reprofiled to Non-Half-Hourly (NHH) with even more potential savings.
With many museums now receiving energy renewals and bills based on the new structure, they will be conscious of these new charges.
The charges are opaque, referring to things like capacity, meter operator, data collection, Tuos, Duos and increased standing charges for Half Hourly meters. What are they and how do you know they are correct? Contact The AIM Energy Action group For advice:
*P272 – This is the upgrading of 160,000 non half hourly meters in the 05 to 08 profile class to Half Hourly status bringing with it mandatory smart metering, meter operator and capacity costs.